sweet sweet georgia

So I was inspired to start a blog after my mini vacation to Georgia...yeah, we'll see how long this lasts.

Day 1: I feel that just this past week my life has changed. It all started when I went on a beach trip with Kiersten. Ya know, just a fun “let’s get away from Memphis and get really tan before school hits us again.” So on our route to Stuart, FL, we were going to stop in Augusta for a couple of nights. We had a fake list of things that we were going to do on this vacation, just little adventures to make the days go by. Adventures like swimming with dolphins and yeah, that’s about as far as we got. We were off from Memphis, just driving along. It was going great until we realized that we didn’t have an Ipod adapter that worked in Kiersten’s car. So that meant 8 hours of listening to the few cds that Kiersten had stashed in her 6 holder cd player. (One being Michael Jackson’s Greatest Hits.) Basically, we were in for a long drive. I think it’s funny how these days we can’t drive across the country or yet even cross the street without music. I wonder what it was like for Sacagawea as she had to follow Louis and Clark around with no music. I know that sounds like a silly thing to say, but I’m just saying could you do it? No music, just the songs that come from your mouth. So anyway, back to the trip. No Ipod was strike one. So we listened to the cds, talking about life, love, and everything in between. Then it was the thing that changed our lives forever or maybe just for a short time period. It was at the Texaco off of Highway 5, just outside Atlanta. Kiersten was filling up her new Honda with gas, as I wandered around the sketchy gas station in search of a bathroom. I always have to pee on road trips and I hate with a passion going in gas station restrooms. Someone in the government needs to do something about the sanitation of those things. I came back out and we were on the road again. Talking about how wonderful our lunch at the Swan Coach House was going to be, and then Kiersten slammed on the brakes. Neither of us a realized that we were driving on the interstate and slamming on your brakes isn’t something that should be done there. Especially with Atlanta drivers driving the way they do. Kiersten let out some choice words and we both realized that her wallet was left on the car. Kiersten snapped back to reality and noticed that she was going 20 mph down I-20. I was trying to calm Kiersten down and tell her to get off at the next exit and turn around. So we merged over to the far right lane and turned around. The stress in our car was growing; Kiersten’s whole life was in that wallet. Saying that makes me think of It’s a Wonderful Life when the angel is talking to Jimmy Stewart about money. The angel says, “Who needs money?” Jimmy Stewart responds. “Well it comes in pretty handy down here!” What were we going to do? We were in Douglasville, GA, a place I had never been introduced to until that day, and our appointment at the Swan House was fast approaching. So, we made it back to the Texaco. I ran inside and asked the Indian man working the counter if a wallet had be turned in. He gave me a puzzled look and it took me about 2 minutes more than it should have to explain the situation. He finally informed me that no wallet had been turned in. I walked outside and see Kiersten pacing the parking lot with a look of disbelief in her eyes. She was holding herself together pretty well; I was bracing myself for her to cry. I usual get really awkward around people crying, probably because I could never really relate to that emotion. That, I guess was because I grew up with brothers and crying was a form of weakness. However, I will say that nursing school has brought to my attention that emotion, but that’s a different story for a different day. I told Kiersten that the wallet hadn’t been turned in and she said that she wasn’t having any luck in the parking lot. So, we decided to retrace our drive from the gas station to the interstate. Now, let me preface the situation. We had planned to have lunch at the Swan Coach House, were we would be dinning with Buckhead’s finest. So, that meant we had to at least dress in somewhat nice attire. Kiersten was wearing a short blue skirt and a colorful top and I was dressed like a girl right out for a Jcrew catalog. With that said, we began our trek along Highway 5 and the local folk obviously were not use to young woman walking down the Highway because we were honked at I don’t even know how many times. I just love it how when you really want someone to notice you, they never do, but when you want to just blend in with the surroundings you stick out like a sore thumb. I’ll just say, neither of us was in the mood to be honked at by sketchy old men. We were hot and sweaty and Kiersten had just lost her identity to the world. Sweat was dripping down our faces but we continued marching down the road. It wasn’t looking very promising. We had been walking for about 20 minutes with no siting of the missing wallet. We walked back to the gas station and Kiersten went inside to get the number to the police station to inform them about the missing wallet. Just in case it decided to return. By the time that the policeman finally showed up our reservations at the Swan House had expired. Our perfect trip was quickly changing and we had no control of it. Kiersten spent the next 30 minutes filling out a stolen item report and contacting various people to have her credit card and such cancelled. After we got the police paper work squared away we were on the road again. With all the stress of the missing wallet, neither of us had an appetite, which was a first because usually we have to eat every hour to satisfy our stomachs. Kiersten was driving and called her bank back in Memphis to see if there was anyway to have money wired down to Anne’s account in Augusta. Thank goodness for modern day technology because I was able to use my little TomTom GPS to navigate banks in Augusta. However, the bank couldn’t wire the money to this bank called SunTrust and Anne wasn’t answering her phone and we needed her permission to put some money in her account. So, I suggested putting the money in my Regions account. This was the part of the trip that changed Kiersten and my relationship forever. We were now about to share a bank account! This whole trip was just like a movie you would see on the big screen. I can just see it now, “Two young college girls off on their last adventure before classes begin again, but little did they know that the road that waits ahead of them was full of adventures beyond their imagination.” I’m pretty sure that this was the first time in my life that I was truly thankful for technology. I always use to tell my dad that I was born in the wrong decade. That must be the farm girl in me, wanting to go back to the good old days. When people worked hard and enjoyed each others company. Where Friendships were based on speaking to each other face to face or writing letters from your heart, not from random text messages or a wall post. Oh, how technology has changed us! Anyway, back to our great adventure. After dealing with the hassle of bank accounts and identification and gas cards we decided that we were both starving. So my new best friend TomTom told us where the nearest Chick-Fil-A and we enjoyed a nice late lunch. We were now about 2 hours away from Augusta. Our plan was to stay in Augusta 3 nights and hit the road again for Stuart, FL. But since Kiersten didn’t have a license to drive, literally, we were in quite the predicament. Do we continue on the trip and just pray that we don’t get pulled over? Stay in Augusta or just go home? Oh the million questions that raced through our heads, those were the few that we caught! We decided that we would get to the Scarborough’s and see what happened. We finally made it to Augusta with no other problems arising. Once we got the Scarborough’s, the first thing that we did was find our beds, the trip had exhausted us and all we wanted to do was take a nap. After we rested our eyes for a little while, we got up and contemplated on what to do next. No one was home yet. Anne had to take the girls to violin and Grant was still at work. I felt a little awkward, I’m not going to lie, being in someone’s house without ever meeting them. We finally worked up the nerve to venture outside our room and see if anyone was home yet. We walked around the house and there was no one to be found. Kiersten had slipped into the bathroom and I was in the bedroom as someone walked in the door. I was thinking, oh great ,these people are going to think that some rando is in there house, so I waited til Kiersten was out of the bathroom to see who this surprise guest was….it was Josh, the Scarborough’s friend. He decided to help Anne out by getting the burgers ready for the feast that night. So we sat and talked and filled him in with our mini adventures we encountered that day. After about 30 minutes of talking, Anne and the kids arrived at home. We hastily got the supper ready as the guests started filing through the door. Dinning was wonderful! We had burgers and chocolate chip pie…so good! After the guests had left and the kids were in bed it was just Anne, Grant, Kiersten, Josh, and I left. The girls sat and enjoyed a glass of wine, while the guys had PBR. The rest of the night consisted of talking about the wonders of life and youtubing Bo Qui Qui videos, don’t get crazy. We still had no clue on what to do about the rest of our trip. Anne suggested that we could stay at the Scarborough’s Farm that’s in Pine Mountain, GA or we could even stay a few extra nights at their home in Augusta. We decided to sleep on it and we would think about it the next day.